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THE ATL ANTI AN
6
July, 1917
A Chance to Improve Atlanta
The disastrous fire which so recently swept away
seventy-three blocks in a good residential section, should
be a lesson to us to abolish shingle roofs, and the present
opportunity should be seized upon to beautify that sec
tion as rebuilding progresses. It would, perhaps, be im
possible for financial reasons to turn the whole burned
district into a park, but it is entirely possible to make of
it a semi-park residential district which will greatly beau
tify the city.
Though we may not like to admit it, Atlanta is not
well equipped in the matter of parks and public resorts.
At the price of calamity we are now in position to
remedy to a certain extent our deficiencies in this respect,
and we should, therefore, either broaden and park the
streets, or turn a certain part of the burned district into
a park.
It can be managed if we will take a little time to
consider the matter from its various angles, and it is a
case where a little patient effort will prove a big invest
ment.
Preparedness
A very mouthful of a word, and not too big a mouth
ful for what it suggests.
It suggests, for one thing, that our extremely indi
vidualistic tendencies have prevented us from properly
co-ordinating our industries so that we could face emer
gency.
It suggests that these same tendencies have caused
us to neglect Universal Military Training, which would
have been good for our boys and given us a great reserve
of trained men.
These same tendencies have for years permitted
speculators to run amuck with our food, textile supplies,
railroads, and public utilities plants, so that when faced
with war conditions we are in extreme peril of disaster
at the hands of these speculators whom we have per
mitted and even encouraged to carry on their uneco
nomic and therefore nefarious practices.
What we know about preparedness against danger
would not fill a thimble. What we have recently learned
about unpreparedness would fill the Gulf of Mexico, pro
vided it was an empty bowl.
What then? Shall we let the foolish and disloyal
stand in the way of amendment? God forbid.
As intelligent men, as lovers of liberty, as real believ
ers in government only by consent of and partnership of
the governed with the government, it becomes our duty
to sternly put aside the malcontents and throw every
ounce of our national strength into such preparedness
as will prevent this great nation from being again caught
which we stand.
Having accomplished the task in hand, which will
never be done until we have crushed internal traitors,
we can then apply ourselves to such prudential measures
as will prevent this grat nation from being again caught
in a state of such childish and disastrous unreadiness.
Let us adopt the war cry of the resolute old Indian
chief, Cornplanter, whose cry rose above the din of bat
tle —“Be strong, be strong.”
Let us “be strong” not in census figures but in power
which can be promptly used, and then we will not have
to use the power.
But power is a mighty handy thing to have in a
world where madmen obsessed with lust of power domi
nate the greatest military nation of earth.
The Selective Draft Plan
Some people are tearing their hair over what they
consider the infringement of Constitutional rights by the
passage of the selective draft law. These people can be
divided into three classes, pro-Germans, slackers, and
demagogues. There is not among them one conscien
tious objector to ten thousand of the other classes.
We are engaged in a righteous war with the great
est military power the world has ever known.
The struggle will strain our resources of men, money
and supplies. As to men, two courses were open to us —
to fill our army with volunteers or drafted men. We
tried the first, and we are not the only nation that has
tried it. In every case it has failed, and that left us with
no resource but to draft suitable men or tamely surrender.
For once the Congress acted promptly and wisely.,
The Selective Draft is the law of the land, duly enacted
by our chosen representatives to meet a great emergency.
The man who now opposes it convicts himself of disloy
alty. It does not matter what he may claim as the
grounds of his opposition, the mere fact of opposition to
the law is proof of disloyalty.
Such men are entitled to no consideration; they
should be deported for life as unworthy of citizenship
in a country which is fighting to save liberty to the world.
The fact that these slackers, pro-Germans and dema
gogues, are allowed to rant proves that we in this coun
try have conceded too much liberty to the disloyal ele
ments which care nothing for anything on this earth but
themselves and their own petty games. The quicker we
rid ourselves of them the stronger will be the Republic.
Wilson—An Ambassador of God
to the World
The world’s forward movement is at the cost of
much tribulation and woe. This is because men refuse
to use in right ways the intelligence with which God has
endowed them. If we fail to see the justice of the inno
cent suffering with the guilty it is because we fail to
grasp the great truth that the innocent are too well satis
fied with their own innocency and fail to make a proper
fight against the forces of evil. So it happens every now
and then that God permits the world to reap the harvest
of calamity produced by its own folly and misdeeds.
But on such occasions he always raises up a man
with courage and intelligence enough to point the way
out from the quagmire of human calamity.
No thoughtful man can doubt in the present welter
of murder, rapine and arson which has overwhelmed the
world that God has found a man in Woodrow Wilson